Sperm Swimming Style Caught On Hologram

ForexTV NewsDesk   |  September 18 2012 4:44 EDT

ForexTV.com (New York) by R. Rode

Tracking sperm and the style it swims has given researchers better clues to single-celled swimming organisms.   Engineers at the University of California, LA have been researching a new technique that has allowed scientist to track every move a human sperm cell swims.  Not just one sperm, but more than 1,500 simultaneously swimming sperm.

This research has opened more than one eye; it has opened up the door for scientist to study how drugs and other impediments can affect large numbers of cells.  The technique, which produces a holographic image, allows the capability for scientist to not just focus on human sperm but on other single-celled swimming organisms that may pose a threat and lead to diseases in drinking water.

"The holographic technique could accelerate drug discovery and prove valuable for monitoring pharmaceutical treatments of dangerous microbial diseases," Leon Esterowitz, a National Science Foundation officer who oversaw funding for the UCLA study, said in a statement.

Typical sperm swim in squiggly path, but 4 to 5 percent of the sperm in the study swam in well-defined helixes, which no one had ever seen before. Of those circular swimmers, about 90 percent swam in a right-handed helix, while the remaining 10 percent swam in a left-handed helix. The new cell-watching method allowed researchers to see helical sperm paths that were less than 1 nanometer in diameter. 

Currently, there is no finding of this study between the relationship of a sperm’s swimming style, and whether or not it is healthy. However, future studies might reveal relationships between healthy semen and different swimming strokes through fluid.

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